Butter keeps the bread from becoming soggy if you use a moist filling. (Kitchen tip from my mom)

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My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."

I am from the US - Midwest. As a kid, I always buttered my sandwiches; I much preferred that to mayo, mustard, or ketchup. I now prefer mayo, but will occasionally use butter instead. And in our house, toast with jam has to be buttered first.

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Life happens wherever you are, whether you make it or not. - Uncle Iroh

Only if I'm toasting the bread for the sandwich, because the butter makes the toast softer. If I'm making a sandwich of cold fillings on cold bread, no. That said, when eating a sandwich "out," a lot of times the roll/bun/whatever comes buttered.

I remember my grandmother (born 1905) buttering sandwiches instead of using mayo/mustard. A salami sandwich with butter stands out in my mind! She was raised by her Irish immigrant grandparents, and always lived on a farm - sounds like butter is a common sandwich condiment in some places, plus her grandfather was a notoriously cheap man, who would never have gone for buying condiments at the store when they had plenty of butter right there, and would not have been OK at all with using valuable eggs to make mayonnaise. Wasn't mayonnaise considered a 'luxury' sauce in the early 1900's?

Mustard will dry out the bread if you aren't eating the sandwich right away. So if I'm packing a sandwich, I'll butter the piece of bread that the mustard goes on to keep it from drying out.

I'll put butter on one piece of bread, mayo or Miracle Whip on the other for a turkey sandwich. Along with some cranberry orange relish. Yum!

If whatever I'm putting on the bread is somewhat spreadable, I don't use any butter - peanut butter, egg salad. But if it is lunchmeat, I'll sometimes butter one piece of bread. If the bread is really fresh, I don't bother.

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After cleaning out my Dad's house, I have this advice: If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out!!!!.

My grandparents (born just before 1900 in the Midwest US with strong ties to their Norwegian roots, if any of that helps explain anything) put butter on bread before making anything. In fact, they put butter on other bread-like products before adding fillings or meat: hamburger/hot dogs, crackers, pastries/sweet rolls, lefse...

My parents did it a little-- I remember it on our PB&J sandwiches, but my brother and I don't do it at all. I think he and I were grossed out by butter on our hot dogs.

Not only buttered, but LOTS o' butter! The whatever filling/topping I want (yes, including peanut butter on the butter).

My father used to do this with peanut butter, and did the "tooth butter" as described above. It honestly made my stomach turn. The only time I put any butter on sandwiches is on the outside, if i'm making grilled cheese. But never inside.

Not unless it is a toasted sandwich (grilled cheese, etc). Most of my non PB&J sandwiches get mustard.

I did read about the practice in a book when I was a kid and tried it. With PB&J it is fine, but it doesn't make enough difference to me that I am willing to bother. I don't much like it with savory sandwiches that aren't being grilled.

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Lynn

"Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat." Robert A. Heinlein

When I make a sandwich I butter the bread then add the fillings. This is the way everybody in my family makes sandwiches/rolls. I assumed this was common but when chatting to someone about it they not only had never heard of buttering the bread, they found the idea disgusting!

So, do you butter your sandwich bread?

Of course. It's the only way to make a sandwich.

I wouldn't add butter to something like a tuna mayonnaise sandwich, but a standard ham or cheese or chicken? You betcha.

I am English-Irish ancestery - no butter on the inside of the sandwich, even though my mom was raised on a dairy farm.

Lucas is Swiss-German - buttered the inside.

He is one of four children, and now there is only one of them that asks for butter when I make a meal of soup and sandwich, and the only person I know who asks, no matter how they were raised. We are now in our 60s and 70s.

The first place I saw this was when traveling in the UK. I am from the NE U.S., and currently live in the south. My parents are first generation immigrants, Italy and India. I do butter the outside of grilled cheese, before cooking.